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Category Archives: collaboration

Our 5th grade recently spent some time in the library exploring places in texts where the reader must make an inference in order to know the full story. This is a standard that our 5th graders work on in the first quarter.

ELAGSE5RL1: Quotes accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.

To prepare for this lesson, I spent some time reading several picture books as well as exploring what other educators have done with inferences. This post by Pernille Ripp was especially helpful. Anytime we work on language arts standards, I want a good portion of our time to be spent actually reading rather than just practicing a specific skill. With picture book month approaching, I thought this experience would be a good time to reiterate with our older readers that picture books are for all readers and to give them time to read at least 2-3 books during our time together.

Here are the books I decided to pull for this experience:

The Skunk by Mac Barnett

We Found a Hat by Jon Klassen

Shhh! We Have a Plan by Chris Haughton

Mr. Peabody’s Apples by Madonna

The Rough Patch by Brian Lies

Julian Is a Mermaid by Jessica Love

Rules of Summer by Shaun Tan

Voices in the Park by Anthony Browne

The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson

After the Fall by Dan Santat

Duck! Rabbit! by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

My Lucky Day by Keiko Kasza

Boats for Papa by Jessixa Bagley

Unspoken by Henry Cole

For each book, I made a folder with instructions and a guiding question. Inside the folder, I placed some blank post-it notes.

As students entered the library, we began our time on the carpet. I launched right in to talking about a picture book author, Bethan Woollvin. I let students know about her subversive, fractured fairy tales and also that she leaves some of her story to the reader to figure out. In each class, there was usually a handful of students who mentioned that this was an inference. If they didn’t then, we talked about how we would need to make inferences when we read her stories.

I read aloud Little Red. We paused a few places to talk about inferences we must make as the reader:

When the wolf makes a plan

When the wolf climbs into Grandma’s bed looking completely ridiculous

When Little Red makes a plan

When Little Red is wearing a wolf costume at the end of the book

This whole read aloud experience was setting students up for their own task. With a partner, students chose one of the picture books I had pulled. Their goal was to enjoy the book together. While they were reading, they were invited to think about places in the text and illustrations where the author/illustrator left the story up to the reader to figure out. Any inferences could be written onto a post-it note to add to the folder for future readers to read and consider. As more students read each book, more post-it notes appeared in the folders and readers could compare their own thoughts to those of others.

The teacher and I were able to sit with pairs of students and listen to their reading. Sometimes we read aloud with them as well and became a natural part of the conversation on inferences. What I loved the most was looking around and seeing so many 5th grade readers engaged with a text and having a genuinely good time reading them. The inference part was low key enough that the enjoyment of the book was the more central part of their time.

We closed our time by having any pairs of students who loved a book do a short book talk for others and highlight where that book could be found in the library. My hope was that this would be a spark to our picture book month challenge where students are encouraged to read a picture book from each genre section of the library.

When Ms. Foretich (art teacher) and I finished sharing Love by Matt de la Pena & Loren Long with our 3rd graders, we flipped back to one image in the book.

This image always surprised students when I read the book aloud. It’s the only image in the book that is zoomed in so close. There was always a collective gasp or audible reaction, and we often had to stop and talk about what this image was all about. I was so glad that Ms. Foretich chose to focus on this image with a whole grade level.

We paired this image with another book called The Best Part of Me.

This book features voices of children as they talk about the favorite parts of their body and why. Each poem/prose is accompanied by a black & white image.

In response to Love and The Best Part of Me, students brainstormed about their own bodies and what they love. We encouraged students to think about body parts, favorite activities, and personality as they brainstormed. By the end of class, we wanted students to focus in on a particular aspect of themselves that they could photograph and write about.

Ms. Foretich continued this project in class by having students use iPads to take selfies of the favorite parts of themselves. Students also finished the writing and typed up their words. Ms. Foretich printed all of these to mount on black paper.

They are now displayed in the rotunda of our school. I love standing in the center of the rotunda and looking around at all of the student images and voices staring back at me. To see what each student loves about himself/herself is reassuring in a world that can sometimes seem mean and chaotic.

If you find yourself in our school, I hope you’ll take time to see (and be inspired by) their work too.

After 4th graders finished reading the book Love by Matt de la Pena & Loren Long, Ms. Foretich (art teacher) and I asked them to think about the love that exists in their families outside of school. The book shows many ways that families show love to one another. We had several powerful conversations about images in the book such as the dad and daughter dancing on the trailer, the mom & dad fighting, the older sibling taking care of the younger sibling, and the new parents huddled over the crib. Each student had a different reason that a particular image resonated with him or her.

In the library, we gave students a chance to list out family members that they might be able to have a conversation with at home and what they might talk about in regards to how they show love to one another. Ms. Foretich setup a Flipgrid for families to record this conversation. The link was shared in Class Dojo by classroom teachers and Ms. Foretich also sent a printed set of instructions home with students.

A second piece of the 4th grade project was to also create an image of love. This was very open to student interpretation. They could create symbols, scenes, words, or any combination that spoke to them. These images were started in the 2nd session with 4th graders, and Ms. Foretich and I used this time to conference with each student about his/her plans for creating a recording with family members at home. We were trying to make sure each student had a plan and also had access to the tools they needed to record. I always offered the library as an option for students and families to come in and record.

After this 2nd session, Ms. Foretich continued having students create their images, and we waited on students to film. We had some other teachers check in with specific students in order to encourage them to record at home. In the final week before our author/illustrator visit, I noticed that many students had still not recorded, so I scheduled a session with each 4th grade class to come to the library and record their Flipgrid. This option left out the “record with your family” aspect but at least it allowed each student’s voice to still be included in the project. Students were able to talk about how their family shows love even if they weren’t with their family in the video.

Now, the 4th grade symbols of love are hanging at the entrance to our school, and our Flipgrid is continuing to come together.

Even as I write this post, I’m getting messages from parents asking if it’s too late to add their voice. I’m hopeful we’ll have more families add their voice even after our author visit occurs.

Please take a moment to listen to each family and student on this Flipgrid. You are welcome to leave comments for them on this post or react to their videos with the emoji reactions. If you find yourself at our school, take a look at 4th grades work as soon as you enter the building.

After 5th grade spent time, reading the book Love by Matt de la Pena & Loren Long, I silently turned back through each image in the book. We had spent time talking about some of the images as well as listening to Matt’s powerful words, but Ms. Foretich (art teacher) and I wanted them to have one more slow look at the images. Their goal in looking at the images for a 2nd time was to pick out an image that spoke to them in some way.

At tables, each 5th grader took a brainstorming sheet to reflect on some questions through writing or through sketching. The purpose of this sheet was to help them think more about an image from the book and to imagine a new symbol of love. We wanted students to think beyond just a universal symbol of love like a heart, but we didn’t exclude hearts if that was what students were most connected with.

At the end of the brainstorm, students had to think of what materials they might need in order to make a 3D sculpture of their symbol. Ms. Foretich went through these and helped group students with the materials that they might need.

During the 2nd class, some students worked in the art classroom and others came to the library. Students in the library worked on 3D design in tinkercad to prepare for 3d printing or they used materials from our makerspace such as duct tape and other crafting supplies.

Every class in our school has read the book Love by Matt de la Pena & Loren Long. In preparation for their visit later this month, every class has also created a piece of art in response to the book. These projects began in the library and continued in the art classroom with Ms. Foretich. I have loved the inspiration that the book has given her and the pieces of art that students have created with her. I’ll be sharing much of this student work in the next few blog posts.

Today, I want to focus on 2nd grade. Every 2nd grade class came to the library to hear Love before the holidays. When we read the book, I invited students to listen to Matt’s words and look closely at Loren’s illustrations for as many examples of love as they could find. Similar noticings emerged in each class, but there were also unique observations made that other students didn’t catch. We always paused on the 2nd spread that shows a park image with a cab, a hot dog stand, and a man on a bench. Students always talked about the boy in the wheel chair giving the man a hot dog. Sometimes they noticed the people making eye contact and talking in the cab. Sometimes they talked about the color of the balloon being a symbol of love. The important thing is that they always talked. Students were never silent on a page. They always found love even on pages that were hard like the one with the boy hiding under the piano. Even with all of the bad things happening in the picture, love was still there.

In the art room, we took apart the F&G version of Love and Ms. Foretich gave groups of students an image from the book to study more closely. Students were asked to think about what the image said about love. They had a brainstorming page to get some of their ideas down. They used this process to reimagine the version of love into a new image that connected with them personally.

Over the next class, students turned this into a watercolor image. Each student made a statement about their art that could be posted in a tweet or Instagram caption and wrote it onto their art. What message of love could students send out into the world? I loved the student voice that Ms. Foretich was giving students as she asked them about a short message of love that they could actually send out to the world via social media. She has been taking time to post these images and captions to her Instagram & Twitter account. If you don’t follow her, please take a moment to. You will be inspired by the many examples of student work that she posts.

For now, I’ll let the student work speak for itself through this series of Instagrams. Take a moment to leave students comments here on the blog or on Ms. Foretich’s Instagram posts. The students would love to hear how their messages have connected with you.

We returned from fall break this year on Halloween. The kids were of course pulsing with energy as they awaited a night of trick or treating, so we held a special makerspace session to harness their energy and have some fun. Gretchen Thomas and I already wanted to try something a little different on Halloween for makerspace. When her group of UGA students started investigating Halloween and fall themed makerspace activities, they asked if they all could come instead of just one small group. So…half of her class came at 11:00 and half came at 11:30 and we added extra slots to our signup sheet. We had anywhere from 25-40 students who signed up for each session.

Students made 3-dimensional ghosts out of paper and launched them into the air by putting them onto the end of a straw and blowing. Many students adjusted their ghost design or tried different techniques for launching.

Catapults

Students used Popsicle sticks, spoons, and rubber bands to create catapults that would launch pom pom balls into the air. A Halloween treat bucket was the target, but students also loved becoming the target themselves. This was a rowdy but fun center, and once again, we saw students adjust their designs for a better launch or even build catapults that would launch 3 pom poms at a time.

Leaf Chromatography

Students folded coffee filters into triangular shapes and colored them with markers to make a color pattern. Then, they dipped the filters into water to see how the colors would move across the coffee filter. This center needed a drying area since each filter was very wet after the activity.

Students used a variety of supplies to design their own monsters. This included cupcake wrappers, pipe cleaners, eye stickers, pom poms, glue dots, and more. The thing I loved the most about this center was the character traits that each monster developed. Many students described their monsters in great detail as they worked and developed an impromptu story about each one. Again, students would look at their design and think about what they could add. Some even created parts of their monsters that moved so that they truly came to life.

Haunted House Construction

Students used Strawbees and straws to construct haunted houses. This center evolved as we went, and many students started building other things along the way too. For example, a student built a bird cage with a perch, but the bird was invisible because it was a ghost. Another student build a table-length monster and we talked about how he could have added paper onto his Strawbee skeleton to make a complete monster.

There was a lot of energy, noise, and fun during this makerspace, but it was so organized and focused. Students were engaged the entire time and had many options of what to go to. I wouldn’t run makerspace like this every time, but it was a great alternative to get more kids into the space and meet a variety of needs. Thank you Gretchen Thomas and UGA students for an awesome day of learning and fun.

Ms. Freeman, 5th grade reading teacher, is always brainstorming ways to make the reading standards more engaging for students. One of the standards focuses on how visual and multimedia elements enhance the text. Specifically, the standard is:

She wondered aloud with me about what we might do together in the library with this standard, and we came up with a visual mystery of sorts. Before students came, I selected about 30 picture books and copied 1 page with 1 accompanying illustration from each book.

When students arrived, we took a look at the standard and then read Dad and the Dinosaur by Gennifer Choldenko and Dan Santat.

The students were quick to notice the amount of figurative language packed into this book. As we read, I slowed us down so that we could really look at the illustration and how it matched Gennifer Choldenko’s words as well as how it enhanced her words. We imagined Dan Santat receiving the text without the pictures and how he might visualize the illustrations while he read. We noticed how the grass looked like a sponge when Choldenko talked about the “spongy grass”. We noticed the boy’s face lit up in green when Choldenko talking about how it “glowed like a glow stick”. We made lots of noticings.

Then, I gave each student one of the pages of text that I had copied. I asked them to imagine that they were the illustrator receiving this text. What did they visualize as they read?

Once students had a chance to read the passage and create a picture in their mind, they wandered around the library tables where I had spread out all of the images that matched the text. They had to search for the image that they felt matched their text.

It was very tricky for some because some of the text could potentially match more than one image, but if they looked at the details of the text and the details of the illustration, they should be able to find the exact match.

When students felt confident in their choice, they recorded a Flipgrid video explaining why they felt like their match was correct.

Click the image to listen to our videos

Finally, students went to another set of tables where the full books were spread out. They located the book with their image and explored the title, the images, and rest of the text. Many students discovered a picture book that they wanted to continue reading. Several have been back since the lesson to check out the book.

Another student came to the library to show me one of her guided reading books and how there was a mistake between the image and text. The color of a dog’s collar did not match the description in the text and she wanted me to see that she noticed. I loved that her author and illustrator eye continued on beyond our lesson in the library.

This took some time to put together, but Ms. Freeman and I were really happy with how it turned out and how many students explored books that they might not explore on their own.